Luna Monthly 48
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No. 48 Fall 1973 1973 Trieste Film Festival The jury of the 11th International Science Fict'in Film Festival at Trieste, held during the week of July 7-14, has awarded the Golden Asteroid to the American film Schlock by John Landis with the citation: “For the acute satire and the use it has made of sf to epitomize the point of view of today’s young generation on the affluent society.” The picture is a comic tale of a missing link, wakened from a 20 million year sleep, who spreads disaster in a small American town, until he is done in by beauty, a la King Kong. Susan Hampshire was awarded the Silver Asteroid as the best actress for the Belgian film Malpertius in which she plays three different roles. The story centers around Greek gods, who are sewn into human skins by a mad scientist, played with zest by Orson Welles. John Steiner received the same award as best actor for the Italian film Rads 1001 in which he played a man existing after a worldwide holocaust. Special jury awards went to the feature film La Planete Sauvage by Rene Laloux (France), which already won a prize at Cannes; and to the animated short film Tup-Tup (Yugoslav-Italian production) which had a man running amok and destroying the world due to noises keeping him awake. The Polish film Korytarz (The Corridor) received the Golden Seal of the city of Trieste. The story deals with a man in a sort of moving corridor playing out his life to a human audience. The short film Isabelle et la Locomotive a Vapeur by Patrick Ledoux (Belgium), about a girl in love with a locomotive, was given a special mention by the jury. A special Gold Medal was awarded to Fritz Lang for the poetic and social conception he brought to science fiction in such pictures as Metropolis and Lady on the Moon. His Metropolis was shown in the retrospective section. The jury wanted to give John Landis an actor award for his own role as the Schlockthropus, however festival rules prevent giving more than one award to any picture. This year’s festival was characterized by an almost total lack of fans. An Italian convention should have taken place in Trieste during the same period but had to be cancelled and will probably take place in Milan towards the end of the year. Film selection was far better than usual—horror and draculalike movies were practically absent—although there could have been more entries. The only other films shown were The Third After the Sun (Bulgarian), three stories of time travel and men from another planet; Baba Yaga by Corrado Farina (Italian), based on the comic strip by Guido Crepax, and Akee Bororo (Operation Bororo) by Otakar Fuka (Czechoslovakia) the story of aliens and humans competing for the secret of a cure-all drug. Unfortunately Soylent Green was also absent. It The International Scene seems that the only available copy in Europe was in Israel at the time and while it should SF IN FRENCH: THE FIRST SCIENCE FICTION FILMS have been in Trieste, apparently no effort was made to get it in time. The jury consisted of Nelly Kaplan, French filmmaker; David Overby, an American by Mark Purcell freelance critic; Ricardo Salvat, Spanish critic; Luciano Budigna, Italian journalist; and Lajos The natural film medium for fantasy and for what film people usually consider sf, is Matos, Hungarian scientist and filmmaker. of course animation. Not only is the cartoon, any cartoon, a complete ‘secondary world’ —Gian Paolo Cossato from the first drawn frame; but animation has an abstract logic to its narration that suits the illustration of pure theory. Historically, movie cartoons and special effects trickery have ROGER DELGADO emphasized ‘fantasy’ much more than intellectual theory, but of course the same thing is even more true of realistic actors’ films. It is still not generally realized, incidentally, that British actor Roger Delgado, star of the BBC TV series Dr. Who, was killed recently in the landmark American sf films are basically animation: Lost World, 1925; the two 1933 Kongs; 2001. a highway accident near Nevsehir, Turkey. The 53 year old actor was on his way to a film location at the time. Bom in London of French and Spanish parents, Mr. Delgado began his The first significant film director was an animator, an illusionist, and by a logical stage career in 1938 and entered films and television in 1950. progression, a maker of filmed sf. This was (Marie-) Georges-Jean Melies, 1861-1938. Melies began his career in Paris as an ‘illusioniste,’ a professional magician. Like the famous SPACE MEDALS The International Numismatic Agency has been appointed exclusive American who renamed himself Houdini, he worked in the big-show tradition of the great distributors for the 13 space medals minted by the L. G. Balfour Company of 19th century Frenchman, Robert Houdin. Melies bought Houdin’s own theater to stage his Massachusetts. The medals were made for distribution to NASA and were not previously shows. The early cinematograph was a natural tool for Melies to employ; and like that later available to the public. Minted in sterling silver and pewter, the medals were designed from magician, Orson Welles, he became fascinated with what the camera could do. Like Welles sketches and photographs approved by NASA artists and technicians. They are minted in and unlike Houdin (who appeared in silent serials as a star), Melies realized that filming high relief and measure 1 3/16 inches in diameter. They are struck in a new could be the ‘act’ itself, not simply a means of recording or aiding his stage shows. three-dimensional relief technique developed by Balfour, which stresses the carved contours His most active production period was 1896-1910. So Melies goes back to the period of the design elements. The International Numismatic Agency is located at 96 Prince Street when the ‘motion’ picture was a series of posed stage tableaux; and then his career becomes in New York City. part of the movies’ first artistically important decade, one of several periods when the French have been world leaders in the industry. The filmography that I quote, Georges Sadoul’s (see below), numbers Melies’ films by these tableaux alone, not as separate LUNA Monthly ADVERTISING RATES: story-films; but even so, in his first fifteen years, his output number went over 1500. Even Editor: Ann F. Dietz Full page $8.00 Quarter page $2.50 counting some early staged ‘newsreels,’ Melies had an enormous need for film material. He Published monthly by Frank & Ann Dietz, Half page 4.50 Eighth page 1.50 ransacked the popular Parisian theater, his own first of all. The popular interest in illusion, Classified advertising: 2d per word 655 Orchard Street, Oradell, N.J. 07649 travel, the spectacular, led him to the obvious fantasy sources of mythology and the novels Half-tone copy: $5.00 additional DEADLINE FOR MATERIAL: of Jules Verne. As they had appealed to Verne’s original reading public, their plots gave Rates are for camera-ready copy. Please request First Friday of preceding month Melies’ audience both the sense of travel and the excitement of the new industrial special LUNA layout sheets for setting up copy. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Ads requiring preparation should be submitted technology: submarines, balloons, planes, automobiles. 40tf per copy, 50tf on newsstand in advance for quotation. For'a long time the Verne-Melies film most commonly seen over here was a print of $4.00 per year Third Class Mail worldwide the 1902 Voyage to the Moon; But Melies did other adaptations, like a 1907 20,000 5.00 per year First Class Mail COPY SIZE: (inside margins) 6.75 per year outside North America via Full page 6” 9" Leagues Under the Sea. In his one-reeler, the moon rocket hits the man in the moon in the 9" or 6” x 4%" First Class Mail Half page 3” eye; and our lunar satellite contains a chorus line of Parisian moon-maids. With this level of Quarter page 3" 4%" Subscriptions requiring special invoicing scientific interest, there is obviously no point in separating the Verne films from Melies’ Eighth page 3" 2%" 50(f additional other pictures as ‘science fiction.’ The point the reader might miss, however, is that later, Microfilm Edition: $17.00 per reel (year) OTHER LUNA PUBLICATIONS: more sober pictures, not gagged up and with the hero properly airsuited, do not Back issues: #1 to 13 - 75d each, #14 to LUNA' Editor: Franklin M. Dietz Jr. 37 - 50tf each, #38 to current - 4(M each Speech Transcripts Published Irregularly automatically become more ‘scientific’ than Melies’ little farces. These later films have only adopted a surface realism whereas he employed a surface fantasy. And what the modem All checks and money orders must be payable to LUNA Annual Editor: Ann F. Dietz Franklin M. Dietz Jr. only Bibliography To be published audience considers science-fictional, is still Melies’ type of technical trickery. The so-called sf element in the James Bond films is Ken Adam’s sets. (Adam’s sets were even used to carry US ISSN 0024-7375 Member: Science Fiction Publishers Association much of the thematic burden in the recent mystery film, Sleuth, somewhat at the expense OVERSEAS SUBSCRIPTION RATES for LUNA Monthly via Airmail/FC through agents: of Anthony Shaffer’s wonderful dialogue.) My point is, the Melies ‘tradition’ extends far AUSTRALIA A$6.00 beyond the short animation film that Disney eventually commercialized over here just as Gary Mason, GPO Box 1583, Adelaide, S.A.